Four Dimensions of Foreign Left-Wing Scholars’ Spatial Critique of 21st-Century Capitalism

By consciously constructing its own space, capitalism reproduces an abstract space that perpetuates its own development, ultimately concealing the order of space within the spatial order. This is not only the foundation for capitalism to establish its spatial dominance but also an important reason for its survival. In this regard, scholars such as Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Edward W. Soja, and Manuel Castells take the production of space as their central axis and treat social space as the basic point of departure for the spatial critique of capitalism. In the transition from the production of space in 20th-century capitalism to the production of global space in the 21st century, the previously clearly stratified social space has taken on a complex state of mutual interpenetration, combination, and superimposition, making the scalar characteristics of social space hidden within capitalist spatial forms increasingly apparent. Although Lefebvre also paid attention to scalar issues ranging from local politics to the nation-state and even the global, the scalar characteristics of capitalist social space had not yet fully revealed themselves at that time. Since the 1990s, scholars such as Harvey, Neil Smith, and Doreen Massey had already begun preliminary explorations of the political-economic significance of spatial scale. Entering the 21st century, foreign left-wing scholars have formed a new perspective on the spatial critique of capitalism by revealing the production mechanisms of different spatial scales under new capitalist forms and their internal interconnections. Harvey and Smith have even regarded the “production of spatial scale” as the key to understanding the capitalist world of the 21st century.

资本主义凭借对自身空间的自觉建构再生产出延续自身发展的抽象空间，最终把秩序的空间隐藏于空间的秩序之中。这不仅是资本主义确立其空间统治的基础，也是资本主义幸存的重要原因。对此，H.列斐伏尔(Henri Lefebvre)、D.哈维(David Harvey)、E.W.索亚(Edward W.Soja)和M.卡斯特尔(Manuel Castells)等学者以空间的生产为中轴，将社会空间作为资本主义空间批判的研究基点。从20世纪资本主义空间的生产到21世纪全球性空间生产的转变中，以往层次分明的社会空间呈现出互相穿插、组合、叠加的复杂状态，从而使得资本主义空间形态所隐藏的社会空间尺度化特征也愈发显现。尽管列斐伏尔也关注到从地方政治到国家乃至全球的尺度问题，但是彼时资本主义社会空间尺度化的特征尚未完全暴露出来。自20世纪九十年代起，哈维、N.史密斯(Neil Smith)、D.马西(Doreen Massey)等学者已经开始了对空间尺度的政治经济学意义的初步探讨，进入21世纪之后，国外左翼学者通过揭示资本主义新形态下不同空间尺度的生产机制及其内在关联，形成了对资本主义空间批判的新视角。哈维和史密斯更是将“空间尺度的生产”视为理解21世纪资本主义世界的关键。

Previous spatial production was based on the reality of generalized urbanization. However, with the development of dynamic global capital accumulation, capital has increasingly concentrated in certain urban spaces. Through the reorganization of urban spatial scale, capitalism has formed the unique territorial form of the global city. To maintain the stability of global cities, capitalism has, through the transmutation of national spatial scale, formed new state spaces that consolidate the spatiotemporal relations of capital accumulation. To sustain capital accumulation, capitalism extends from the reorganization of urban spatial scale and the transmutation of national spatial scale to the reconstruction of global spatial scale, elevating original micro-spatiotemporal relations into a macro and asymmetrical spatial order, thereby constructing a new world system. To make global spatial scale serve capital accumulation, capitalism must obtain new modes of value production by manufacturing hierarchical differences in bodily spatial scale, and use these to adjust the global deployment of capital. It is precisely based on the new changes and characteristics of 21st-century capitalism—from generalized urbanization to the global city, from national space to new state space, from the world system to the new world system, and from the disciplined body to the scalar production of the body—that foreign left-wing scholars have formed four dimensions of critique: the dimension of global city critique, the dimension of new state space critique, the dimension of new world system critique, and the dimension of bodily space critique.

以往的空间生产以普遍城市化的现实为基础，然而，随着动态的全球资本积累方式的发展，资本越发集聚在某些城市空间。资本主义通过城市空间尺度的重组，形成全球城市这一独特的地域形态。为了维持全球城市的稳定性，资本主义通过国家空间尺度的嬗变，形成巩固资本积累的时空关系的新国家空间。为了资本积累的持续性，资本主义从城市空间尺度的重组、国家空间尺度的嬗变延伸至全球空间尺度的重构，将原有的微观时空关系提升至宏观且非对称的空间秩序，建构起新世界体系。为了使全球空间尺度服务于资本积累，资本主义必须通过制造身体空间尺度的等级差异获取新的价值生产模式，并以之来调整资本的全球布展。正是基于21世纪资本主义从普遍城市化到全球城市，国家空间到新国家空间，世界体系到新世界体系，以及规训的身体到尺度化的身体生产的新变化新特征，国外左翼学者形成了全球城市批判维度、新国家空间批判维度、新世界体系批判维度与身体空间批判维度等四重维度。

I. The Dimension of Global City Critique

一、全球城市批判维度

Entering the 21st century, regional metropolises based on large-scale “Fordist-Keynesian” production have gradually transformed into strategic nodes of global and European financial networks. Capitalism incorporates metropolitan cities into the cycle of global capital accumulation and makes them economic engines of national prosperity. As urban issues evolve into scalar issues, cities and their regions become strategic strongholds for regulatory experimentation, institutional innovation, and sociopolitical struggle. “Scale is no longer equivalent to a unified social function. It is rather seen as the concrete manifestation of diverse and overlapping political-economic processes.” [1]1 This is a paraphrase or direct quotation from a scholar such as Neil Smith or Doreen Massey, who have written extensively on the politics of scale in geography. The concept of the “global city” proposed by Saskia Sassen indicates that capitalist spatial production has formed a model that is spatially dispersed yet organizationally integrated, and new forms of capital flow and concentration have made a few global cities into transnational economic spaces for the operations of domestic and foreign enterprises, special technological spaces, and highly specialized work spaces. The global city itself possesses a special spatial configuration, internal dynamics, and social structure; in essence, it is a capital spatial unit driven bidirectionally from both inside and outside. Its typical cities are New York, London, and Tokyo. The 2008 global financial crisis precisely revealed that the “global city” has become the most important site for the intensification and eruption of spatial contradictions. It is evident that 21st-century capitalism, taking the global city as its source, has shaped new scalar spaces from the outside to the inside, further exacerbating spatial differentiation and the exploitation of urban residents. Therefore, foreign left-wing scholars take the critique of the global city as an important dimension of the spatial critique of 21st-century capitalism, analyzing and examining it from two aspects: the global city landscape and the power-geographical network of the global city.

进入21世纪，以“福特—凯恩斯主义”大规模生产为基础的区域大都会逐渐转型为全球及欧洲金融网络的战略节点。资本主义将都会城市纳入全球资本积累循环，并使其成为国家繁荣的经济引擎。随着城市问题演变为尺度问题，城市及其区域成为管制试验、制度创新和社会政治斗争的战略要地。“尺度不再等同于统一的社会功能。而更多地被视为多种多样且相互交叠的政治经济学过程的具体表现。”S.萨森(Saskia Sassen)所提出的“全球城市”概念指出，资本主义空间生产形成了空间分散但组织一体的模式，而资本的流动和集中的新形式使得少数全球城市成为了国内外企业运作的跨国经济空间、特殊的技术空间和高度专业化的工作空间。全球城市本身具有特殊的空间构型、内部动力和社会结构，在本质上是内外部双向驱动的资本空间单元，其典型城市是纽约、伦敦和东京。2008年的全球金融危机恰恰揭示了“全球城市”已经成为空间矛盾激化和爆发的最重要场所。可见，21世纪资本主义以全球城市为策源地，从外部到内部塑造的新尺度空间，进一步加剧了空间分化与对城市居民的剥削。因此，国外左翼学者将全球城市批判作为21世纪资本主义空间批判的重要维度，从全球城市景观和全球城市的权力地理网络两方面进行分析与审视。

1. Critique of the Global City Landscape

1.全球城市景观批判

The urban landscape is a microcosm of social relations in time and space. The production of the global city landscape reveals a trend toward the fusion of local and global scales. Oriented by competition among global cities, capitalism uses landscape production and consumption as means to maintain economic vitality. Whether it is traditional spaces such as residential areas and administrative districts, or new spaces such as (ethnic, racial) enclaves and slums, all become tools of capital segmentation and class differentiation. As a new scalar space and order, the global city landscape represents the highest stage of 21st-century capitalism’s planning of all urban spaces in accordance with its own interests. Foreign left-wing scholars aim to reveal the ever-changing global city landscape, thereby critiquing the various modes of exploitation within it.

城市景观是社会关系在时空中的缩影，全球城市景观的生产彰显出地方与全球尺度的融合趋势。资本主义以全球城市竞争为导向，将景观生产与消费作为维持经济活力的手段。无论是居住区、行政区等传统空间，还是(民族、种族)飞地、贫民区等新空间，都成为资本区隔和阶级分化的工具。作为一种新的尺度空间和秩序，全球城市景观体现了21世纪资本主义对一切城市空间进行符合自身利益规划的最高阶段。国外左翼学者旨在揭示不断变化的全球城市景观，进而批判全球城市景观中的各种剥削模式。

Capital, government, media, and consumer tastes jointly drive the renewal and reconstruction of the urban landscape, giving rise to “urban residents’ longing for the origins of authenticity.” [2]2 Sharon Zukin, *Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places* (Oxford University Press, 2010), where she discusses the concept of authenticity in urban space. Sharon Zukin pioneered the redefinition of “authenticity” as the cultural right of all people to live and work in the city, and used it as a powerful weapon in the struggle for capital power over the control of urban space. However, capitalism has seized the right to interpret “authenticity,” reducing it to a carefully selected lifestyle or performance. The “local commercial street” ecosystem, as a site for the construction of authenticity, is gradually destroyed by “gentrification” and “hipsterization” in the process of constructing the global city, causing low-income locals, transnational migrants, and ethnic minorities to gradually lose their sense of spatial belonging. Therefore, the spatial contradictions between ethnic groups, between races, between the Global North and the Global South within the global city, as well as the spatial contradictions between the hyper-diversity of globalization and the authenticity and sense of spatial belonging of local socio-ecological structures, are precisely the result of capital power’s violent seizure of human spatial rights. The global city has become a “hidden site” for the exploitation of cultural value and emotional value.

资本、政府、媒体和消费者品味共同推动了城市景观的更新与重构，并催生了“城市居民对原真性起源的渴望”。S.佐金(Sharon Zukin)开创性地将“原真性”重新定义为所有人在城市里生活和工作的文化权利，并将其作为控制城市空间的资本权力斗争的强力武器。然而，资本主义夺取了“原真性”的诠释权，使其沦为一种被精心选择的生活方式或表演。作为原真性建构场所的“地方商街”生态系统在全球城市的建构过程中逐渐被“士绅化”和“潮人化”摧毁，使低收入的本地人、跨国移民和少数族裔逐步丧失空间归属感。因此，民族间、种族间、北方世界和南方世界在全球城市中的空间矛盾、全球化的超级多样性与本地社会生态结构的原真性、空间归属感之间的空间矛盾正是资本权力对人类空间权利暴力攫取的结果。全球城市已成为剥削文化价值和情感价值的“隐性场所”。

Capitalism continuously engages in “creative destruction” within the global city, simultaneously renewing the urban landscape based on consumption and desire. By analyzing the century-long development of New York’s Times Square, Marshall Berman points out that symbols, culture, and ideology driven by the logic of consumption and desire, aided by modern information technology, manifest as diverse urban consumption landscapes. They transcend geographical spatiotemporal distances and achieve permanent presence in New York’s Times Square, ultimately abstracting the process of mutual fusion of global-local social space. Berman calls on people to actively participate in the construction of the urban landscape through the right to the city, to resist capital’s globalization of the city and spatial production, so as to recreate a more vibrant modern city.

资本主义在全球城市中不断进行“创造性破坏”，同时基于消费和欲望更新城市景观。M.伯曼(Marshall Berman)通过分析纽约时代广场的百年发展指出，消费和欲望逻辑催生的符号、文化和意识形态借助现代信息技术，表现为多样化的城市消费景观。它跨越地理意义上的时空距离并实现在纽约时代广场中的永久在场，最终抽象化了全球—地方尺度社会空间的相互融合的过程。伯曼呼吁人们通过城市权利积极参与城市景观建构，抵制资本的全球城市化与空间生产，以再现更具活力的现代城市。

Furthermore, the new round of “glocalization” strategy and its scalar reorganization, spurred by the global urban landscape, have further intensified the differentiation and regional imbalance of core nodes within the urban network system. Building on Sassen’s definition of the new characteristics of global cities, Mike Davis, in exploring the emergence and polarization of slum landscapes, points out that the rise of the “slum city” is a manifestation of the failure of modern urbanization, with global cities overall exhibiting characteristics of inequality and instability. From Rio de Janeiro to Mumbai, slums have become the new normal of the spatial order of global cities. The extreme expansion of the poverty landscape in 21st-century global cities has led to severe economic, social, political, and environmental consequences. Therefore, resistance movements against capitalist spatial production, centered on slums, are necessary, and these will become an emerging force against the capitalist global urban landscape. This argument aligns with Smith’s “reclaim the city” movement and Harvey’s view of “opening up anti-capitalist struggles in the city.”

此外，全球城市景观催生的新一轮“全球地方化”战略及其尺度重组，进一步加剧了城市网络体系中核心节点的分化与地域不均衡。基于萨森对全球城市新特征的界定，M.戴维斯(Mike Davis)在探讨贫民窟景观的诞生与极化问题时指出，“贫民窟城市”的涌现是现代城市化失败的体现，全球城市整体呈现出不平等与不稳定的特点。从里约热内卢到孟买，贫民窟已成为全球城市空间秩序的新常态。21世纪全球城市贫困景观的极端扩展导致了经济、社会、政治和环境方面的严重后果，因此需以贫民窟为核心展开对资本空间生产的抵抗运动，而这将成为对抗资本主义全球城市景观的新兴力量。这一论断与史密斯的“恢复城市失地运动”和哈维的“开拓反资本主义斗争的城市”观点相契合。

2. Critique of the Power-Geography Network of Global Cities

2.全球城市的权力地理网络批判

Global cities are spaces of capital’s technology, specialization, and transnational finance; their internal industrial structures and spatial forms indicate that “these cities need to be supported.” As the “internal space” of capital, global cities are the core of the system of spatial production and consumption, extending their influence through trade and production networks to the peripheral non-metropolitan world. First-world cities thereby engage in asymmetric exchange, exploitation, and domination over third-world cities and rural areas, while the non-metropolitan world sustains the global cities that serve as key organizational nodes in the network of world economic life and must rely on such unequal relations and complex global city networks to solve their own sustainability problems. Along with the continuous political and economic concentration of global cities, they have reconfigured previous geopolitical and power models and gradually become the engine of global spatial production.

全球城市是资本的技术、专业化和跨国金融空间，其内部产业结构和空间形态表明“这些城市需要被供养”。作为资本的“内部空间”，全球城市是空间生产与消费系统的核心，并通过其影响力将贸易和生产网络延伸至边缘的非都市世界。第一世界城市借此对第三世界城市及农村进行非对称性交换、剥削和统治，而非都市世界供养着世界经济生活网络中关键组织节点的全球城市，并且不得不依赖于这样的不平等关系和复杂的全球城市网络来解决自身的可持续性问题。伴随着全球城市的政治经济的不断集中，全球城市重构了以往的地缘政治与权力模式，并逐渐成为全球性空间生产的发动机。

21st-century capitalism, centered on global cities, shapes a new round of global spatial order from the inside out. The primary function of global cities is to promote the economic development of surrounding regions or countries through competitive articulation in the fluid global space. In other words, global cities achieve the binding of the macro global scale through their own “pan-regions” from within. Sassen not only analyzes the basic characteristics and operational modes of global cities from the perspective of capital accumulation but also emphasizes that the economic power of global cities in banking, finance, and professional services determines their dominance over the global city network. Massey develops Sassen’s argument, understanding global cities as centers of a broad geographical network of social power relations. “The key ‘command points’ in the network are today’s ‘global cities,’ which ‘dominate the world.’” Capitalism, through the asymmetric exchange of wealth and power, increasingly concentrates within global cities, thereby shaping a highly hierarchical power-geography network of capital. However, such a power-geography network is not stable; “each city tries to climb up within its own hierarchical network or in the direction most suitable for its future development.” Consequently, competition among regions, nations, and cities for development capital becomes more acute, increasingly manifesting as “excessive” urbanization construction worldwide, which ultimately leads to global “de-territorialization” and the “de-agriculturalization” of national policies. Therefore, the power-geography network of global cities, as an important mirror of new means of spatial exploitation and spatial domination, has become a core issue in the spatial critique of 21st-century capitalism.

21世纪资本主义以全球城市为核心，从内部向外部塑造了新一轮的全球空间秩序。全球城市的主要职能是在流动全球空间中通过竞争性接合的形式推动周围地区或国家经济发展。换言之，全球城市从内部出发实现了以自身的“泛区”粘合起宏观的全球尺度。萨森不仅从资本积累的角度剖析了全球城市的基本特点和运行方式，还强调全球城市在银行、金融和专业服务上所具有的经济实力决定了它对全球城市网络的主导权。马西发展了萨森的论点，将全球城市理解为广泛社会权力关系地理网络的中心。“在网络中关键‘指挥点’就是当今的‘全球城市’，这些城市‘主宰世界’。”资本主义通过财富和权力的非对称交换日益集中于全球城市内部，进而塑造出资本高度等级化的权力地理网络。然而，这样的权力地理网络并非稳定不变的，“每个城市都试图在自己的层级网络或最适合自己未来发展的方向往上爬”。为此，地区间、国家间、城市间争夺发展资本的竞争更趋尖锐，并日益表现为世界范围内“过度”的城市化建设，而这最终造成了世界范围内的“去土地化”和国家政策的“去农业化”。因此，全球城市的权力地理网络作为空间剥削与空间统治新手段的重要镜像，也就成为了21世纪资本主义空间批判的核心问题。

II. The Dimension of Critique of the New State Space

二、新国家空间批判维度

The spatial production of global cities and the global city system constructed around them drive the spatial transformation of state forms through globalization. In this process, the state becomes both fragmented and globalized. In his theory of state spatial production, Lefebvre argues that one should not assume a unidirectional relationship between the economic base and the superstructure, but rather understand the spatial characteristics of the state through the dialectical relationship between different scales—local, regional, national, and global. In this regard, Neil Brenner further points out that “Lefebvre’s analysis of the state mode of production can be widely applied to analyze the ‘neoliberal’ form of state restructuring unfolding on a global scale in the last two decades of the 20th century.” Accordingly, Brenner proposes that the production of the new state space is the old model of state spatial stratification, an interactive transformation of new boundaries and new scales. In the 21st century, “one of the most important geographical effects of the globalization of capital is that accumulation, urbanization, and state regulation are no longer concentrated at the national scale, but emerge in new sub-national and supra-national territorial spaces.” Based on the dimension of critique of the new state space, foreign left-wing scholars not only point to the fact of geopolitical critique triggered by state spatial restructuring but also reveal changes in the scale of the new state space.

全球城市的空间生产及以此为核心建构的全球城市体系，正是通过全球化来推动国家形态的空间变化。在这一过程中，国家在分裂的同时也变得全球化。列斐伏尔在国家空间生产理论中指出，不应认定经济基础与上层建筑仅具有单向关系，而应从地方、区域、国家和全球不同尺度间的辩证关系上来理解国家的空间性特征。对此，N.博任纳(Neil Brenner)进一步指出，“列斐伏尔的国家生产方式分析可以广泛应用于分析20世纪最后20年在全球尺度展开的‘新自由主义’形式的国家重构”。据此，博任纳提出新国家空间的生产就是旧的国家空间分层模式，是新边界与新尺度的互动性嬗变。21世纪“资本全球化最重要的地理影响之一，就是积累、城市化与国家调控不再集中于国家尺度，而在新的次国家与超国家地域空间中崛起”。基于新国家空间批判维度，国外左翼学者不仅指出由国家空间重组引发的地缘政治批判这一事实，而且还揭示出新国家空间尺度的变化。

1. Geopolitical Critique Triggered by State Spatial Restructuring

1.由国家空间重组引发的地缘政治批判

The state is no longer a fixed, pre-given “container,” but a dynamic, multidimensional spatial form. It is continuously restructured through regulatory strategies and socio-political struggles across different domains and scales, attempting to construct a new state space by transcending the territorial logic and sovereignty analysis methods of the traditional state space. If previous capital accumulation, urbanization, nationalization, and even globalization were centered on the national spatial scale, then the new state space of 21st-century capitalism will no longer have a spatial scale occupying a special position. For the new state space, it is undergoing a dynamic “inside-outside” deformation, meaning its external boundaries bring about intense geopolitical conflicts and internal social power struggles.

国家不再是一个固定的、预先给定的“容器”，而是一个动态的、多维的空间形态。它通过不同领域和尺度的管制策略和社会政治斗争而被不断重构，并试图以超越传统国家空间的领土逻辑和主权分析方法，建构起新国家空间。如果说以往的资本积累、城市化、国家化乃至全球化是以国家空间尺度为核心，那么21世纪资本主义的新国家空间将不再具有处于特殊地位的空间尺度。对于新国家空间而言，它正经历着“内—外”的动态形变，即其外部边界带来激烈的地缘冲突与内部激发的社会权力斗争。

The political boundaries of capitalist state space are undergoing profound restructuring, specifically manifested as “(the territorial state) reproduces external boundaries in the form of ‘internal boundaries’,” thereby reproducing new spatial boundaries. However, this process is essentially a spatial representation of the outward expansion of capital power: on the one hand, capitalism partially opens state borders, absorbing migrant workers to meet the practical needs of capital production; on the other hand, it reintroduces old colonial legacies into political space, promoting the “recolonization of migrants,” including spatial racial segregation, discriminatory institutional violence, nationalist ideological violence, and measures to pursue illegal immigrants. In this regard, Étienne Balibar points out that the capitalist state wavers between old and new spatial frameworks, making the relationship between exclusion and inclusion extremely tense. Such a community cannot truly achieve totalization, and “is a tremendous negation of the idea of a community of citizens… State and citizenship are more contradictory than ever before. This is not merely a general and almost fictitious problem of opposition.” Thus, the border issue is no longer a marginal political issue; it “affects all dimensions of civic space: not only the geographical space in which civic life unfolds, but also the symbolic and institutional space”—the social space of human existence and life. This requires the construction of a truly “democratized border” to overcome the complex geopolitical contradictions triggered by capitalist state space.

资本主义国家空间的政治边界正经历着深刻重构，具体表现为“(领土国家)以‘内部边界’的形式重新复制外部边界”，并再生产出新的空间边界。然而，这一过程本质上是资本权力向外扩张的空间表征：一方面，资本主义部分地开放了国家的边界，吸纳移民工人满足资本生产的现实需要；另一方面将旧式的殖民遗产重新引入政治空间中，推动“移民的再殖民化”，包括空间上的种族隔离、歧视性的制度暴力、民族主义的意识形态暴力与对非法移民的追捕措施等。对此，E.巴里巴尔(Etienne Balibar)指出，资本主义国家在新旧空间架构的选择中摇摆不定，排斥与包容之间的关系也因此变得极为紧张。这样的共同体不仅无法真正实现总体化，而且“是对公民共同体理念的巨大否定……国家和公民身份前所未有地彼此矛盾。这不仅仅是一般性和几乎虚构的对立问题”。由此，边界问题不再是政治的边缘问题，它“影响着公民空间的各个维度：不仅是公民生活展开的地理空间，还有象征性和制度性的空间”——人类生存生活的社会空间。这就需要建构真正的“民主化的边界”来克服资本主义国家空间引发的复杂地缘矛盾。

Differing from Balibar’s view, Neil Davidson emphasizes that, unlike the traditional territorial state, the unique function of the new state space is to maintain “the most basic link in the competitive accumulation of commodities,” while simultaneously “regulating competing capitals to prevent market relations from degenerating into a ‘war of all against all’.” Therefore, the capitalist state necessarily has clear boundaries. This boundary is essentially a spatial boundary of accumulation, determined by “the structural coherence of specific spatial production and consumption.” In this way, he unifies the competition on which capitalism depends with the geopolitical competition of states, concluding that “the trajectory of geo-economic competition ultimately ends in geopolitical competition.”

与巴里巴尔的观点不同的是，N.戴维森(Neil Davidson)强调与传统的领土国家不同，新国家空间的独特职能在于维持“商品竞争积累的最基本环节”，但同时要“调控相互竞争的资本，以防止市场关系退化为‘所有人对所有人的战争’”。因此，资本主义国家必然具有明确的界限。这一界限本质上是一种积累的空间界限，并由“特定空间生产与消费的结构连贯性”来决定。这样，他便将资本主义赖以生存的竞争与国家的地缘政治竞争统一起来，并得出“地缘经济竞争的轨迹最终以地缘政治竞争告终”的结论。

2. Critique of the Scale of the New State Space

2.新国家空间尺度批判

On the basis of Harvey’s spatial theory, Bob Jessop, by introducing the two concepts of “spatio-temporal fix” and “spatial scale,” has initiated a critique of the new state spatial scale of the 21st century. In his view, capitalism “naturally has such a necessary temporal structure … involving a recurrent cycle of dynamic equilibrium between self-stabilization, continuous self-transformation, reconstruction induced by occasional crises, and other forms of change. These factors are often linked to new modes of time-space distantiation and time-space compression, and also often to changes in the dominant spatio-temporal perspective and in the dominant accumulation space.” [14]14 “时空定位” (spatio-temporal fix) and “空间尺度” (spatial scale) are key concepts in Jessop’s strategic-relational approach to state theory, referring to the temporary stabilization of capitalist contradictions through specific spatial and temporal arrangements, and the hierarchical levels (local, national, global) at which social processes are organized. New time-space distantiation and time-space compression have disrupted the previous spatial order centered on the state spatial scale. Regarding the future of capitalism, “there will be ongoing struggles over which spatial scale will become dominant, which scale will serve as the intermediary articulating other scales, and so on.”

在哈维空间理论的基础上，B.杰索普(Bob Jessop)通过引入“时空定位”与“空间尺度”两个概念开启了21世纪新国家空间尺度的批判。在他看来，资本主义“天然具有这样一种必要的时间结构……涉及自我稳定、持续的自我转型、不时的危机所引致的重建和其他形式的变化之间反复循环的动态平衡。这些因素常常与新的时空扩张(time-space distantiation)和时空压缩(time-space compression)模式联系在一起，也往往与在占主导地位的空间—时间视角和主导积累空间中的变化联系在一起”。新的时空扩张与时空压缩破坏了以往以国家空间尺度为核心的空间秩序，关于资本主义未来将“围绕哪种空间尺度会成为主要的、哪种尺度将成为接合其他尺度的中介等等这些问题，将会展开持续的斗争”。

On this basis, Brenner analyzes the predicament of general imbalance in capital accumulation, state governance, urbanization, and socio-political struggle that capitalism faces at the state spatial scale. He points out that although capitalism can respond to these crises through three strategies—the re-territorialization of the state, the re-bordering of the state, and the rescaling of the state—the first two strategies are both difficult to fundamentally resolve the inherent contradictions of the capitalist state space. Only through rescaling can capitalism adjust the relational structure of socio-spatial forms and achieve a dynamic equilibrium among the scalarization of social processes, scalar reorganization, and highly asymmetrical social power relations. Thus, the new state space of capitalism is a social space in which capitalism “mobilizes state institutions to regulate social relations and influence their locational forms, with territorial, place, and scale specificities.” On the one hand, the new state space accelerates capital circulation in specific regions and realizes the reproduction of labor power; on the other hand, it “creates geographies and structures of inclusion/exclusion, domination/subordination.” In this way, it modifies the relational structure of specific socio-spatial forms and defines the relative position of these socio-spatial forms within the system of uneven spatial development of global capitalism. However, 21st-century capitalism cannot engage in unlimited “scalar fixes” to shape new state spatial forms, because any concrete spatial order and spatial regulation cannot depart from dependence on existing paths. This process is not “a simple transition from one stable regulatory framework to another; it is a path-dependent process of superimposition.” This indicates that the socio-political struggle of the proletariat triggered by the critique of the new state spatial scale will become a realistic path for shaping a socialist space of difference.

在此基础上，博任纳剖析了资本主义在国家空间尺度上所面临的资本积累、国家治理、城市化和社会政治斗争普遍失衡的困境。他指出，资本主义虽然可以通过国家的再领域化、国家的重新划界和国家的尺度重构三种策略应对这些危机，但是前两种策略均难以从根本上化解资本主义国家空间的内在矛盾。唯有通过尺度重构，资本主义才能调整社会空间形式的关系结构，实现社会过程的尺度化、尺度重组与高度不对称的社会权力关系三者之间的动态平衡。可见，资本主义的新国家空间就是资本主义“动用国家机构来管制社会关系并影响其区位形态的方式，具有地域、地方和尺度特定性”的社会空间。新国家空间一方面加速特定地区的资本循环、实现劳动力再生产，另一方面则“创造了包含/排他、支配/从属的地理与结构”。这样，它修正了特定社会空间形式的关系结构，并且规定了社会空间形式在全球资本主义非均衡空间发展系统中的相对位置。然而，21世纪资本主义不能无限制地进行“尺度修复”进而塑造新国家空间形态，因为任何具体的空间秩序和空间管制都无法离开对现实路径的依赖。这个过程不是“从一个稳定的管制框架到另一个管制框架的简单过度，它们是路径依赖式的叠加过程”。这预示着新国家空间尺度批判所引发的无产阶级的社会政治斗争将成为塑造社会主义差异空间的现实路径。

III. The Dimension of Critique of the New World System

三、新世界体系批判维度

With the adjustment of capitalism’s internal spatial production strategies, sub-national scales and supra-national scales have usurped the capacity of a single nation-state to construct a world order. This is because the traditional state-centric system is gradually being replaced by a more dispersed, networked power structure, a power no longer confined by national borders but unfolding through socio-spatial networks on a global scale. The new power structure blurs the boundaries of national sovereignty, producing “a world defined by new, complex regimes of difference, homogeneity, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization,” which heralds the picture of a new world system. As Soja states, “A three-dimensional supra-national global political-economic differentiation, together with its inherent geography of power, is replacing the old international division of labor of the First, Second, and Third Worlds, as well as the popular metaphor of core and periphery: the North-South divide.” The new world system is neither the “state-scale-world-system” proposed by Immanuel M. Wallerstein, nor the “global-scale-world-system” understood by scholars such as Kenichi Ohmae, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri; rather, it is “a multi-scalar restructuring of the capitalist social architecture, accompanied by a reorganization of entrenched scalar hierarchies, leading to a completely new geography of capital accumulation, state regulation, and uneven development.” Therefore, the characteristics of the new world system must be grasped from the dual tension between the global scale and the state scale.

随着资本主义内部空间生产策略的调整，次国家尺度和超国家尺度攫取了单一国家建构世界秩序的能力。因为传统的国家中心制度逐渐被一个更加分散、网络化的权力结构所取代，这种权力不再受限于国界，而是通过全球范围内的社会空间网络来展开。新的权力结构模糊了国家主权辐射的界限，生产出“一个被新的、复杂的差异、同质、非疆界化、再疆界化的体制所限定的世界”，这预示着新世界体系的图景。正如索亚所言，“三维的超国家全球政治经济区分，连同它内在的权力地理结构，正在取代旧式第一、二、三世界的国际劳动划分，也取代关于核心和外围的流行隐喻：南北区分”。新世界体系既不是I.沃勒斯坦(Immanuel M.Wallerstein)所提出的“国家尺度—世界体系”，也不是大前研一(Kenichi Ohmae)、M.哈特(Michael Hardt)和A.奈格里(Antonio Negri)等学者所理解的“全球尺度—世界体系”，而是“资本主义社会架构的多尺度重构，配合根深蒂固的尺度等级的改组，进而导致了资本积累、国家监管和不平衡发展的全新的地理”。因此，必须从全球尺度与国家尺度的双重张力中把握新世界体系的特征。

1. Critique of Uneven Geographical Environments

1.非均衡地理环境批判

When capital diffuses from closed territorial states into global space, the logic of capital inevitably drives the logic of territory to achieve a dual expansion of the space of capital power and the space of production in spatial terms. Harvey points out that capitalism’s leap from the state scale to the global scale “inevitably arises from the molecular processes of capital accumulation in time and space.” Hence, the impact of uneven geographical environments on the world system cannot be ignored. This is because “uneven geographical environments are not merely caused by the unequal distribution of resource endowments and the advantages or disadvantages of geographical location; more importantly, they are caused by the fact that wealth and power themselves, through asymmetrical exchange, become increasingly highly concentrated in certain regions.” On this basis, Harvey emphasizes that the core of the new world system lies in exploiting uneven geographical environments and utilizing the inevitably produced “asymmetrical” relations of spatial exchange for capital accumulation, including “accumulation by dispossession,” “spatio-temporal fix,” and “geographical landscape restructuring” of global space. Building on Harvey, Smith emphasizes that capitalism, through spatial production, integrates many external geographical spaces into spaces of capital production and accumulation, extracting means of production, exploiting cheap labor, and developing new materials from them. Through such spatial exploitation, capitalism produces spaces of “‘development of underdevelopment’ at the core of uneven development” and establishes a global spatial order by relying on its own “spatial privilege.” Therefore, the new world system of capitalism connects differences in uneven geographical environments across different scales through the global spatial scale, constructing a new power architecture of global space.

当资本从封闭的领土国家弥散至全球空间时，资本逻辑必然驱动领土逻辑在空间上实现资本权力空间与生产空间的双重扩张。哈维指出，资本主义从国家尺度向全球尺度的跃升“无可避免地从时间和空间中的资本积累的分子化过程中产生出来”。因而，不能忽视非均衡性地理环境对世界体系的影响。这是因为“非均衡性地理环境不仅仅是由于资源禀赋的不均衡分布以及地理位置的优劣所造成的，更为重要的是，它是由于财富和权力本身通过非对称性交换，日益高度集中于某些地区所造成的”。在此基础上，哈维强调新世界体系的内核就在于开拓非均衡性地理环境，并利用空间交换所必然产生的“非对称性”的关系来进行资本积累，包括对全球空间进行“剥夺性积累”“时空修复”“地理景观重构”等。史密斯在哈维的基础上强调，资本主义通过空间生产，将诸多外部地理空间整合为资本生产和积累的空间，并从中寻找生产资料、剥削廉价劳动力、开发新型材料。通过此类空间剥削，资本主义生产出“处于不平衡发展核心的‘不发达的发展’”空间，并依靠自身的“空间优位”建立起全球空间秩序。因此，资本主义的新世界体系就是通过全球空间尺度将不同尺度上的非均衡地理环境差异连接起来，构建出新的全球空间的权力架构。

The establishment of a new world system under rescaling is an inevitable product of global spatial production and also a product of the inherent contradictions and crises of capitalism. Taking the 2008 financial crisis as a dividing line, neoliberalism has not successfully overcome the contradictions that led to the collapse of long-term prosperity and the subsequent sustained crisis. The transnational bourgeoisie no longer regards the “Washington Consensus” as a common ideology, instead turning to localism to oppose globalization and populism to resist global population flows. The anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements of late-developing or peripheral countries have severely impacted the global spatial order under the new world system. In response, Alex Callinicos, on the basis of geographical “uneven and combined” development, points out that “the spatially concentrated economic complexes produced by capitalist development create very powerful centrifugal forces, which will strongly maintain the political division of the world into territorial states.” However, due to uneven geographical development, the new world system has the essential characteristic of “a globally uneven distribution of the relative power of states.” Under the background of the relative decline of the US economy, this distribution pattern may be constrained by multiple spatial forces within the capitalist system, and may also face challenges from the resistance of late-developing countries to the global spatial order dominated by the logic of capital.

在尺度重构下建立新世界体系是全球性空间生产的必然产物，也是资本主义内在矛盾和危机的产物。以2008年的金融危机为分界线，新自由主义并未成功克服导致长期繁荣崩溃及其后持续危机的矛盾，跨国资产阶级不再将“华盛顿共识”视作共同的意识形态，转而以地方主义反对全球化，以民粹主义抵制全球人口流动。后发国家或边缘国家的逆全球化和反资本主义运动严重冲击了新世界体系下的全球空间秩序。对此，A.卡利尼科斯(Alex Callinicos)在地理“不平衡—综合”发展的基础上，指出“资本主义发展所产生的空间集中经济综合体创造了非常强大的离心力，这将强烈地维持世界的政治划分为领土国家”。然而，由于地理空间上的不均衡发展，导致了新世界体系具有“国家相对权力的全球不均匀分布”的本质特征。这种分布模式在美国经济实力相对衰落的背景下，既可能受到资本主义体系内部多元空间力量的制约，也可能面临后发国家对资本逻辑主导下的全球空间秩序反抗的挑战。

2. Critique of New Imperialism

2.新帝国主义批判

Indeed, capitalism has broken free from the national scale, but “the infinite accumulation of capital necessarily rests on the infinite accumulation of power… the process of infinite accumulation of capital requires that political structures possess an ‘infinite accumulation of power,’ so as to protect the continuously growing wealth through the maintenance of growing power.” The result is that the new world system inevitably gives rise to a global form of new imperialism. On the basis of Giovanni Arrighi’s dichotomy between the logic of capital and the logic of territory, Harvey points out that “new imperialism” is the product of combining “the politics of state and empire” with “the molecular processes of capital accumulation in space-time.” Callinicos further emphasizes, “I prefer to conceptualize capitalist imperialism as the intersection of economic and geopolitical competition.” This not only reveals the fact that capitalism competes for a dominant position on the global spatial scale, but also deepens the dialectical relationship between the logic of capital and the logic of territory. In addition, Ellen M. Wood differs slightly from Harvey. In her view, under the conditions of globalization, in order to leap from the national scale to the global scale, transnational capital must necessarily construct “a global system of multiple local states” in geographical space. This new type of political power structure takes safeguarding the interests of the “empire of capital” as its core: on the one hand, it promotes the globalization of market rules through spatial units such as sovereign states and supranational organizations, constructing a global order dominated by economic power; on the other hand, it establishes a form of hegemonic expression through the model of “infinite war.” Essentially, this new imperialist model, which Wood calls “capitalist imperialism,” is formed within the dual tension between the national spatial scale and the global spatial scale. The long-term turbulence and instability of the new world system are precisely a profound manifestation of the contradictions and irrationality of capital’s spatial domination of the world.

诚然，资本主义已经脱离了国家尺度，但“资本的无限积累必然建立在权力的无限积累之上……资本的无限积累进程需要政治结构拥有‘权力的无限积累进程’，以通过维持增长的权力来保护持续增长的财富”。其结果便是新世界体系必然催生出全球性的新帝国主义形态。哈维在G.阿瑞吉(Giovanni Arfighi)的资本逻辑与领土逻辑二分的基础上指出，“新帝国主义”就是将“国家和帝国的政治”与“资本积累在时空中的分子化过程”相结合的产物。卡利尼科斯进一步强调，“我更倾向于将资本主义帝国主义概念化为经济与地缘政治竞争的交汇”。这一点不但揭示了资本主义在全球空间尺度上争夺优势地位的事实，而且深化了资本逻辑—领土逻辑的辩证关系。此外，与哈维稍有不同的是E.M.伍德(Ellen M.Wood)。在她看来，全球化背景下跨国资本为了实现从国家尺度向全球尺度的跃升，必然要在地理空间上建构起“一个多元化的地方国家的全球体系”。这种新兴的政治权力架构以维护“资本帝国”的利益为核心：它一方面通过主权国家、超国家组织等空间单元推动市场法则的全球化，构建以经济权力为主导的全球秩序；另一方面则借助“无限战争”的模式，确立霸权的表达形式。本质上说，这种被伍德称为“资本帝国主义”的新帝国主义模式，是在国家空间尺度与全球空间尺度的双重张力中形成的。新世界体系长期的动荡与不稳定，恰恰是资本在空间上统摄世界的矛盾性与不合理性的深刻表征。

However, this mode of analysis has been criticized by Davidson. He argues that Arrighi, Harvey, and Callinicos “all start from different territorial and economic logics and arrive at very similar conclusions… this is a more realistic perspective… but this analytical path does not allow for any deeper internal relations.” In this regard, if one does not approach this issue from the theoretical perspective of “the production of spatial scale,” it is easy to fall into the trap of Davidson’s critique. It needs to be clarified that the new world system of capitalism is neither a “completely homogeneous and smooth space” nor a simple return to the old configuration of national space. In its essence, the new world system is a spatiotemporal framework capable of accommodating multiple spatial forms and multi-layered spatial scales. Within this framework, the tension between the logic of capital and the logic of territory reflects the complex process of reorganization and reconstruction of the national spatial scale and the global spatial scale, while new imperialism summarizes the spatial order and power logic that capitalism attempts to create in this process. Therefore, the analytical approach of the logic of capital and the logic of territory, far from dissolving the deep-seated internal logic of the new world system, further activates the theoretical vitality of spatial critique. Based on this, after a systematic analysis of imperialism and dependency, Theotonio Dos Santos points out that “the antagonisms within imperialism, its external antagonism with the proletariat and the socialist system representing the proletariat, and the already highly concentrated international relations within capitalism” are precisely the fundamental reasons for the continuous geopolitical conflicts and contradictions in the contemporary world system.

然而，这种分析方式却遭到了戴维森的批评。他认为阿瑞吉、哈维和卡利尼科斯“均是从不同的领土和经济逻辑出发，得出非常相似的结论……这是更具现实的视角……但这种分析路径不允许存在任何更深层次的内在关系”。对此，倘若不从“空间尺度生产”的理论视角来看待这一问题，很容易陷入戴维森批评的牢笼之中。需要澄清的是，资本主义的新世界体系既不是“完全均衡且平滑的空间”，也非对旧式国家空间构型的简单复归。究其本质，新世界体系是能容纳多元空间形态与多层次空间尺度的时空框架。在这一框架中，资本逻辑与领土逻辑的张力体现了国家空间尺度与全球空间尺度的复杂重组与重构过程，而新帝国主义则概括了资本主义在这一过程中试图创造的空间秩序与权力逻辑。因此，资本逻辑与领土逻辑的分析思路，非但没有消解新世界体系深层次的内在逻辑，还更进一步地激活了空间批判的理论活力。基于此，T.D.多斯桑托斯(Theotonio Dos Santos)在对帝国主义与依附进行系统分析后指出，“帝国主义内部的对抗，它与无产阶级和代表无产阶级的社会主义体系之间的外部对抗，以及资本主义内部国际关系业已经达到的高度集中”，这正是当代世界体系地缘矛盾冲突不断的根本原因。

IV. The Dimension of Bodily Spatial Critique

四、身体空间批判维度

Capitalism produces an unevenly developed spatial pattern through the production of different spatial scales, thereby consolidating the spatiotemporal circulation mechanism of global capital accumulation. This process not only reflects the intensification of spatial contradictions at three scales—the reorganization of the urban spatial scale, the transformation of the national spatial scale, and the reconstruction of the global spatial scale—but also ultimately grounds them in the ultimate logic of global spatial exploitation: the exploitation of the bodily space. The scaling of the spatiotemporal structure of global capital accumulation causes human bodily space to exhibit distinct characteristics of scaling. Workers’ bodies are differentially embedded in the multiple spatial scales of global capital circulation, and as a result, the contradiction between labor and capital gradually becomes spatialized. In order to further extract a larger space for surplus value accumulation, capitalism even integrates the mechanism of biopolitics into its exploitative logic, ultimately achieving comprehensive control from bodily space to the production of life itself. Addressing this issue, foreign left-wing scholars, building on Lefebvre’s assertion that “the production of space begins with the production of the body,” have opened up a new dimension of the spatial critique of capitalism. They emphasize that the history of bodily space is a history of continuous vertical differentiation and re-differentiation, ultimately forming a highly hierarchical social spatial network. 21st-century capitalism, through the production of the bodily spatial scale, extracts surplus value by creating hierarchical differences in bodily space while simultaneously strengthening scaled control. Moreover, capital incorporates diverse subjects through the internal space of the “crystal palace” [15]15 “Crystal palace” (水晶宫) refers to the metaphor used by Peter Sloterdijk in his critique of the global capitalist system, drawing on the image of the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition hall as a symbol of a sheltered, consumerist interior that excludes and immunizes itself against the outside world. and creates a new immune predicament at the expense of marginalized groups. Its exploitative mechanism has transcended the traditional control of passive bodily space through biopolitics and spatial discipline, moving toward the common exploitation of discrete and diverse spatial subjects.

资本主义通过不同空间尺度的生产制造出不平衡发展的空间格局，并以此巩固资本全球积累的时空循环机制。这一进程不仅反映了资本主义在城市空间尺度的重组、国家空间尺度的嬗变和全球空间尺度的重构等三个尺度上激化了空间矛盾，而且还使之最终落脚到全球空间剥削的终极逻辑——身体空间的剥削上来。全球资本积累时空结构的尺度化，使得人类身体空间呈现出明显的尺度化特征。工人身体被差异化地嵌入全球资本循环的多重空间尺度之中，由此劳资矛盾也逐渐空间化。资本主义为了进一步攫取更大的剩余价值积累空间，甚至将生命政治机制融入其剥削逻辑，最终实现从身体空间到生命生产的全方位控制。针对这一问题，国外左翼学者在列斐伏尔“以身体的生产作为开始的空间的生产”论断的基础上，开辟了资本主义空间批判的新维度。他们强调，身体空间的历史就是不断垂直分异与再分异，最终形成高度层级化的社会空间网络的历史。21世纪资本主义通过身体空间尺度的生产，在制造身体空间等级差异攫取剩余价值的同时强化了尺度化管控。不仅如此，资本通过“水晶宫”的内部空间收编多元主体，并制造以边缘群体为代价的新免疫困境。其剥削机制已超越传统的生命治理术与空间规训对消极身体空间的控制，转向对离散多元空间主体的共同性剥削。

1. The Political Economy Critique of Bodily Space

1.身体空间的政治经济学批判

Precisely because the spatial production of the body constitutes the original starting point of all spatial production activities, “the whole (social) space begins with the body… the origin of (spatial) order can only be explained according to… the order of the body.” 21st-century capitalism, through the production of spatial scale, connects the most microscopic bodily space with the macroscopic space of “globalization.” This not only leads to the forgetting of the body by space, but also triggers a complete rupture between space and the body, ultimately even dissolving the existential value of the body. Building on Lefebvre’s discussion of bodily space, Harvey further points out: “Without an understanding of globalization, the body cannot be understood theoretically or empirically.” The spatial logic of capitalist globalization draws the bodies of various individuals, originally located on different spatial scales, into a complex process of spatial reorganization and scalar reconstruction. “Those who sell their labor power, the uneven development in their bodily practices and sensibilities becomes one of the defining features of the class struggle jointly initiated by capital and labor.” This spatial difference internalized within the individual body not only determines the relative position of the laborer in the global circulation of capital, but also subjects them to varying degrees of exploitation in the circulation process of variable capital—“production—exchange—consumption.” More critically, capitalism, through “unemployment caused by downsizing, the redefinition of skills and skill premiums, the intensification of labor processes and despotic supervision systems, the increasing despotism of the detailed division of labor, the involvement of immigrants… produces the uneven geographical value of individual laborers.” From this perspective, capitalism, through spatial production, creates value differentials among workers’ bodies in different geographical environments. This not only constitutes the basis of the spatial division of labor under capitalism, but has also been developed into an important strategy for dividing the working class. At this point, Harvey emphasizes that 21st-century capitalism is no longer satisfied with exploiting the bodies of single individuals in fixed time and space; instead, it constructs a “body-scale” system for measuring value differentials, thereby achieving the common exploitation of discrete and diverse spatial subjects.

正是由于身体的空间生产构成了所有空间生产活动的原初起点，“整个(社会)空间都始于身体……(空间)秩序的根源只能根据……身体的秩序来解释”。21世纪资本主义通过空间尺度的生产，将最微观的身体空间与“全球化”的宏观空间相连接，这不仅导致了空间对身体的遗忘，更引发了空间与身体的彻底决裂，乃至最终消解了身体的存在价值。在列斐伏尔关于身体空间论述基础上，哈维进一步指出：“如果没有对全球化的理解，身体就不能在理论上和经验上被理解”。资本主义全球化的空间逻辑将那些原本在不同空间尺度上的各个人的身体卷入复杂的空间重组与尺度重构中。“出卖自己劳动力的人，他们在身体实践和敏感性方面的不平衡发展成为由资本和劳动力所共同发起的阶级斗争的确定特征之一。”这种内化于个体身体的空间差异，不仅决定了劳动者在全球资本循环中的相对位置，更使其在可变资本“生产—交换—消费”的循环过程中遭受不同程度的剥削。更关键的是，资本主义通过“削减规模而产生的失业、对技能及技能报酬的再定义、劳动过程和专制性监督系统的强化、精细分工愈益专制化、移民的卷入……促成了作为个人劳动者的不平衡地理价值”。以此来看，资本主义通过空间生产制造不同地理环境中工人身体的价值差额，这不仅构成了资本主义空间分工的基础，更被发展为分化工人阶级的重要策略。至此，哈维强调，21世纪资本主义不再满足于对固定时空中单个人的身体进行剥削，而是建构起一套衡量价值差额的“身体—尺度”体系，以此实现对离散多元的空间主体进行共同性的剥削。

On the basis of inheriting Harvey’s theoretical lineage, Smith further deepened the intrinsic connection between the production of spatial scale and the uneven development of capitalism, clearly stating: “The construction of scale is essentially a social process; it arises from social activities and is in turn shaped by the structure of geographical social interactions… The field of scale production often harbors intense political struggle.” [16]16 Neil Smith, “Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographical Scale,” Social Text, No. 33, 1992, p. 66. Among the many spatial scales, the scale of bodily space plays a foundational role, serving as the key link connecting all spatial scales. This means that capitalism’s manipulation of bodily space has a dual aspect: it is both a reinforcement of the boundaries between spatial scales and a core strategy for driving spatial differentiation. The capitalist system constructs bodies by producing discourses such as gender, race, and identity, and employs highly spatialized strategies to control and discipline bodily boundaries. This logic of control not only penetrates micro-spatial scales such as the family and community but also extends into the realm of public space, imposing closed spatial configurations and body-based exclusionary mechanisms onto what should be open public spaces. Taking the phenomenon of “the homeless occupying public space” as an example, Smith reveals the spatial exclusion mechanism by which their visibility is constantly erased by alien forces and they are systematically displaced into shelters, areas outside buildings and parks, impoverished communities, urban fringes, and other marginal spaces. Through this analysis, Smith profoundly elucidates how, once bodily space is incorporated into the capitalist system of scale production, it achieves a holistic domination that extends from the micro-scale of bodily space to the macro-scale of global space.

史密斯在继承哈维理论脉络的基础上，进一步深化了空间尺度生产与资本主义发展不均衡性之间的内在联系，明确提出：“尺度的建构本质上是一个社会过程，它既产生于社会活动之中，又反过来受到地理社会互动结构的形塑……尺度的生产场域往往潜藏着激烈的政治斗争”。在众多空间尺度中，身体空间尺度扮演着基础性角色，它是串联各空间尺度的关键纽带。这意味着，资本主义对身体空间的操控具有双重面向：它既是对各空间尺度界限的强化，又是推动空间差异化的核心策略。资本主义体系通过生产性别、种族与身份等话语来建构身体，并运用高度空间化的策略对身体边界实施控制与规训。这种控制逻辑不仅渗透到家庭、社区等微观空间尺度中，更延伸至公共空间领域，将封闭的空间构型与基于身体的排斥机制强加于本应开放的公共空间之中。史密斯以“无家可归者占据公共空间”的现象为例，揭示了他们的可见性不断被异己力量所抹除，被系统性地转移至收容所、建筑物和公园之外、贫困社区、城市边缘地带以及其他边缘空间的空间排斥机制。通过这一分析，史密斯深刻阐明了身体空间被纳入资本主义尺度生产体系后，如何实现从微观的身体空间尺度到宏观的全球空间尺度的整体性统治。

2. Life-Ontological Critique of Bodily Space

2.身体空间的生命本体批判

On the basis of Lefebvre’s meta-theory of bodily space, in addition to Harvey’s and Smith’s political-economic critique of bodily space, there exists a more concealed critical path—the life-ontological critique. In Lefebvre’s view, although space is often regarded as an objective existence relative to the subject, this does not mean that the subjective dimension is absent from space. “Every living body, before it affects the material realm, before it produces itself by drawing nourishment from that realm, before it reproduces itself by producing other bodies, already exists as space and at the same time possesses its space.” [17]17 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, p. 170. Here, life is regarded as the true ontology of bodily space; the life of the subject and space are directly identical. Peter Sloterdijk, through a series of imaginative spatial metaphors such as “bubbles,” “spheres,” and “foams,” develops and constitutes the dimension of life-ontological critique of bodily space.

在列斐伏尔身体空间元理论的基础上，除了哈维和史密斯的身体空间的政治经济学批判外，还存在着一条更为隐秘的批判路径——生命本体批判。在列斐伏尔看来，空间虽然常被视为相对于主体而言的客观存在，但这并不意味着主体维度在空间中的缺席。“每个有生命的身体，在它们对物质领域产生影响之前，在它们通过那一领域吸取营养来生产自己之前，在它们通过生产其他身体来繁育自身之前，它就已经既作为空间而存在，同时又拥有它的空间。”这里，生命被视为身体空间的真正本体，主体的生命与空间是直接同一的。P.斯洛特戴克(Peter Sloterdijk)通过“气泡”“球体”“泡沫”等一系列富有想象力的空间隐喻，发展并构成了对身体空间的生命本体批判之维。

Sloterdijk reinterprets the “body-space” relationship from the perspective of life ontology. He truly places the body at the core of human spatial relations, revealing how humans continuously produce, expand, and reconstruct their own existence within micro- and macro-spatial structures. Based on the spatial imagery of “bubbles-spheres-foams,” he points out that globalization is not only the globalization of macro-spheres but also the infinite proliferation of micro-bubbles. “The salient sign of globality’s establishment is the forced coexistence with countless accidental co-existents.” [18]18 Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres, Volume 3: Foams, trans. Wieland Hoban, South Pasadena: Semiotext(e), 2016, p. 47. The encounter of bubbles gradually causes the foam to “brew a state of existence most suitable for living beings, a tranquil state similar to that of a living being in the womb.” [19]19 Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres, Volume 3: Foams, p. 47. The paradigm of this space is the “Crystal Palace”—it is the concentrated embodiment of capital’s internal space. The Crystal Palace is a giant foam where all commodities, money, symbols, and images converge. This “pampering space” (Verwohnungsraum) inevitably creates an opposing, darker, and more dangerous external space, while those subjects and spaces cast outside capital’s internal space can only survive and live in risk. This precisely denigrates the authentic life logic of human spatial production. “Exclusivity is an inherent property of projects like the Crystal Palace itself… The expression ‘globalized world’ refers only to the mobile facilities of the ‘life-world’ of that portion of humanity with purchasing power.” [20]20 Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres, Volume 3: Foams, p. 48. For the “other” spaces outside the mainstream space (such as Third World countries and slums), they are isolated in marginal zones.

斯洛特戴克从生命本体的角度重新诠释了“身体—空间”的关系。他将身体真正置于人类空间关系的核心，揭示了人类如何在微观与宏观的空间构造中不断生产、扩展和重构自身的存在。他基于“气泡—球体—泡沫”的空间意象指出，全球化不仅仅是宏观球体的全球化，更是微观气泡的无限增殖。“全球性得以建立的显著标志就是被迫与无数偶然的共同存在者成为邻居”，气泡的相遇使泡沫逐渐“酝酿出一种最适宜于生命体的存在状态，一种类似于子宫中生命体的恬静状态”。这一空间的典范是“水晶宫”——它是资本内部空间的集中体现。水晶宫是一个巨大的泡沫，其中所有的商品、货币、符号、影像都汇聚于此。这种“放纵”(Verwohnungsraum)空间必然营造出与之对立的、更为黑暗与危险的外部空间，而那些被抛掷在资本内部空间之外的主体和空间，则只能生存与生活于风险之中。这恰恰是对人类空间生产的本真生命逻辑的贬斥。“排他性正是水晶宫这类项目本身所固有的性质……‘全球化了的世界’的表达仅指能够作为人类当中，拥有购买力的那批人的‘生活世界’的移动设施”，对于那些主流空间之外的“他者”空间(如第三世界国家、贫民窟)则被隔绝于边缘地带。

V. Conclusion

五、结语

The shift in research focus among foreign left-wing scholars from “the production of space” to “the production of spatial scale” is not intended to negate the basic theoretical paradigm of spatial critique of capitalism by scholars such as Lefebvre, but rather to reflect the new morphological characteristics of 21st-century capitalism, namely multi-scale integration and spatial coexistence. In terms of theoretical genealogy, they inherit the methodological tradition of 20th-century spatial critique, especially Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and Harvey’s historical-geographical materialism, while also responding to contemporary issues such as spatial restructuring and the lack of spatial justice under the background of neoliberal globalization. The four dimensions of foreign left-wing scholars’ spatial critique of 21st-century capitalism constitute an interlocking logical whole: the dimension of global city critique treats the global city as the source of global spatial production, forming the logical starting point of spatial critique; the dimension of new state space critique reveals the spatial differentiation caused by global cities, which causes the regulatory mechanisms of capitalism to break through the limits of traditional national spatial scales, forming a logical extension of the dimension of global city critique; the dimension of new world-system critique focuses on the new power structure formed by the multi-scale dispersal of power within national space, forming a logical deepening of the dimension of new state space critique; the dimension of bodily space critique focuses on the common exploitation suffered by discrete and plural spatial subjects, forming the logical direction of spatial critique. Foreign left-wing scholars’ spatial critique of 21st-century capitalism has important theoretical contributions. It not only reveals the holistic nature and operational mechanisms of capitalist spatial domination across macro- and micro-scales but also deeply analyzes the deep-seated roots of the predicament of capitalist political alliances and regional economic-political groups in their alternation. It can be seen that only by responding to these predicaments at the level of spatial scale can left-wing movements establish their political demands and guide the future direction of radical politics. However, foreign left-wing scholars’ spatial critique of 21st-century capitalism also has points worthy of debate: first, it fails to fully grasp the internal tension between “the production of spatial scale” and “the production of space,” and its theory easily falls into the predicament of “scale-centrism”; second, it weakens the core position of the Marxist method of class analysis, which reduces the theoretical force of its spatial critique; third, its theory lacks an effective intermediary connecting spatial critique and revolutionary practice, ultimately limiting the theory’s ability to transform into reality. These problems precisely reflect the predicaments and limitations faced by foreign left-wing scholars in the theoretical development and innovation of their spatial critique of 21st-century capitalism.

国外左翼学者从“空间的生产”到“空间尺度的生产”的研究转向，并非要否定列斐伏尔等学者对资本主义空间批判的基本理论范式，而是要反映21世纪资本主义所呈现出的多尺度融通与空间共存的新形态特征。从理论谱系上说，他们既承继了20世纪空间批判的方法论传统，尤其是列斐伏尔的空间生产理论和哈维的历史—地理唯物主义，又回应了新自由主义全球化背景下的空间重组、空间正义缺失等当代议题。国外左翼学者对21世纪资本主义空间批判的四重维度构成了一个环环相扣的逻辑整体：全球城市批判维度将全球城市视为全球性空间生产的策源地，构成了空间批判的逻辑起点；新国家空间批判维度揭示了全球城市引发的空间分化，致使资本主义调控机制突破传统国家空间尺度的限制，构成了对全球城市批判维度的逻辑延伸；新世界体系批判维度聚焦于国家空间内部权力向多尺度分散所形成的新型权力结构，构成了对新国家空间批判维度的逻辑深化；身体空间批判维度聚焦于离散多元的空间主体所遭受的共同性剥削，构成了空间批判的逻辑指向。国外左翼学者对21世纪资本主义的空间批判具有重要的理论贡献，它不仅揭示了资本主义空间统治贯穿宏观与微观尺度的整体性实质及其运作机制，而且深入剖析了资本主义政治联盟和区域性经济政治团体更迭困局的深层根源。可见，左翼运动只有在空间尺度层面上回应这些困境，才能确立其政治诉求并指引未来激进政治的发展方向。然而，国外左翼学者对21世纪资本主义的空间批判也存在着值得商榷的地方：一是未能完全把握“空间尺度的生产”与“空间的生产”之间的内在张力，其理论容易陷入“尺度中心主义”的困境；二是弱化了马克思主义阶级分析法的核心地位，这削弱了其空间批判的理论力度；三是其理论缺乏连接空间批判与革命实践的有效中介，最终限制了理论向现实的转化能力。这些问题恰恰反映了国外左翼学者在对21世纪资本主义空间批判的理论发展及其创新过程中所存在的困境与局限。

Online Editor: Zhang Jian

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